Cookies.txt

by Gabrielle Johnson. (Cookies and all rights reserved).

CJ, Dani, and I happen to have birthdays in February. We celebrated this year's round with family and friends at the Lucky Dragon, a Cantonese restaurant. For that special occasion I thought it appropriate to wear my gold necklace with a pendant in the shape of a Chinese character meaning: Long Life. I had bought that pendant in Hong Kong years ago in a small jewelry store in downtown Kowloon on busy Nathan Road, and I seem to recall that a very friendly and talkative sales clerk had explained Long Life to me. Yet that was back in the late seventies, almost exactly 20 years before Hong Kong was to be released into its semi-independent status, around the same time I released myself into mine. No doubt a lot of other things have happened in the meantime. Not only in Hong Kong. That's why, frankly, I'm not quite sure anymore if the meaning of my Chinese charm is indeed Long Life, or perhaps Eternal Happiness, or even Good Luck.

Since Dani has recently traveled to China and it is one of his hobbies to learn at least 53% of a country's language on his trips, I asked him for his confirmation of my long life - a birthday would be a perfect opportunity. So I thought. His answer was cheerful. "Not even," he said "the meaning of your pendant is [pause] BIRD FLU." He insisted he had seen the exact same Chinese character (that I was happily and more or less luckily wearing around my neck) at the Shanghai Airport, or it could have been the one in Beijing, on the entrance door to the quarantine department.

[pause]

I started to laugh hysterically. I attributed my state of mind to the plum wine I had drunk in connection with my low alcohol tolerance. It couldn't have been caused by the roasted duck with 15 delicacies - dinner was excellent and I'm not allergic to monosodium glutamate. Neither am I superstitious.

Amidst laughter, I was beginning to wonder as much as the plum wine permitted: is the character for bird flu possibly some sort of lucky symbol for a long life (in analogy to re-designating the number 13 into its lucky opposite)? Are perhaps both Chinese characters for long life as well as for bird flu one and the same - just pronounced differently? Or can we not even rely on Chinese charms anymore? So does it mean I'm going to have a long life? Or is there a catch somewhere? Perhaps at the end?

My fortune cookie at the Lucky Dragon said:
<Go patient path. It all just matter of time>

I shouldn't have read it aloud. I felt exposed - everybody at the table was grinning at me. Patience isn't one of my virtues. I'm in hurry although I pretend otherwise. I'm restless despite my yoga and tai chi courses. I always feel I might miss out on something. What if I don't find? What if I am not found? I haven't found yet. What's a field-current decay test or a hoop drop relay in German, for my technical translation? Why did the sales clerk, when I asked her for the price of the box with colorful paper clips, reply that their store was open until 8:00 p.m.? What did the Knight-Who-Talks-Backwards mean by "You to lied never have I. Myself to lie only I. Friends are we."(?)

<Go patient path. It all just matter of time>

P.S. At our birthday dinner I was randomly selected to fill out a "customer quality service form". I'm now on the Lucky Dragon's mailing list. Lucky me! Each week I receive a different cookie in the mail. This week's message was:
<You will live very long happy life, soon. Beware of he who lie to you>